The present invention concerns a biometric identification method and system.
Biometric identification methods and systems are based on the comparison of biometric data of a candidate for identification and of user biometric data that have been previously stored, for example in a database. The identification is validated when the biometric data of the candidate correspond to biometric data of one of the users, the biometric data of which are stored in the database.
The biometric data result from the treatment of biometric characteristics detected on the candidate and on the users. The biometric characteristics concern for example fingerprints, patterns in the irises of the eyes, features of the face, etc., and are generally captured by optical means connected to a computerised processing unit. The optical means supply to the computerised processing unit images in the form of signals, from which an image processing program extracts the biometric characteristics and codes them by computer in order to form the biometric data. The computerised processing unit hosts the database containing the identification data, including biometric data, of users that have previously been captured and stored, and executes a comparison (or matching) program that compares the biometric data of the candidate with the biometric data stored in order to validate or refuse identification.
Such identification systems are for example used at the entrance to premises with regulated access. An identification system with one or more biometric capture devices each associated with a gate is disposed at the entrance to the regulated-access premises in order to control opening of the gates in the case of validated identification.
One drawback of such biometric identification systems lies mainly in the time taken by the comparison of the biometric data since the larger the number of biometric data in the database, the longer the comparison.
In order not to create bottlenecks at the entrance to the regulated-access premises, increasing the number of biometric capture devices and gates is known. This solution is however expensive and has a space requirement more or less suited to the configuration of the premises. Furthermore, the time waiting for the validation of the identification is certainly a nuisance from a global point of view because of the creation of bottlenecks but also from an individual point of view since the candidate for identification may consider that he is wasting his time while he is awaiting validation of his identification, all the more so since he may be caused to have to identify himself several times a day at the same place.
One solution to this problem is to increase the power of the computing means of the computerised processing unit. This solution is however also expensive.
Another solution would be to divide the database into two groups, between which the characteristics of the users are distributed. Each user would be informed of a group to which he has been allocated and should indicate this at the moment of capture, using a keypad of the capture device. This solution has the advantage of having limited impact on the hardware cost. However, it assumes that the user remembers the group to which he has been allocated and despite everything requires the presence of a keypad, the integration of which on the biometric capture device increases the cost of the latter.